Lots to look forward to in Indian sports as packed 2026 calender awaits
Israel's government has approved a proposal to bring all the remaining 5,800 Jews from India's north-east, commonly referred to as Bnei Menashe, over the next five years.
Market reaction to the Union Budget was overall neutral. The income tax "gift" wasn't enough to move the needle. There was some apparent rationalisation of Customs duty structure as well as cuts on import duties of some key components for the telecom and IT industry and duty cuts on vehicle imports. Other proposals related to development of agriculture and rural economy and renewables seem to be generally positive.
Most of the scanty 6.35% rise in the defence budget is accounted for by manpower and running expenses.
10 largecaps stocks which stand to gain from the Budget.
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi slammed Pakistani politician Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari for his "blood would flow in rivers" remark and called former cricketer Shahid Afridi a "joker" for his comment on the Pahalgam terror attack. Owaisi also supported India's decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty and called for Pakistan to be placed on the FATF grey list. He also advocated for cyber attacks against Pakistan.
The total allocation to the defence sector is 12.9 per cent of the total budget of the government of India for the financial year 2024-25.
After Operation Sindoor, the Army and Navy now view the IAF as not a supporting arm, but the spearhead of India's warfighting capability, capable of decisive outcomes across domains, explains Air Commodore Nitin Sathe (retd).
'Our vision is to innovate as many products as we can and solve as many problems as possible.'
'The preparedness of our defence forces and positioning of intelligence assets were very different in 2008, so we had to rebuild our assets and preparedness.'
For every rupee in the government coffer, the biggest pie of 63 paise will come from direct and indirect taxes, according to the Union Budget 2024-25 documents.
France today increasingly resembles the Italy of the past, when governments fell with bewildering regularity, prime ministers came and went in rapid succession, and political instability became the norm rather than the exception, point out Krishnan Srinivasan and Manoj Mohanka.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has slapped 11 new conditions on Pakistan for the release of the next tranche of its bailout programme and warned that tensions with India could heighten risks to the scheme's fiscal, external, and reform goals, according to a media report on Sunday.
'Still, people are asking why we have not gone for a full-out war. As a military man, if ordered, I will go to war, but that will not be my first choice'
When the internal security situation spirals out of the control of the provincial law and order machinery, the CAPFs can be called in, providing a security buffer before the Army is deployed.
'The Chinese being focussed more seawards is definitely better for India with China being the looming threat along our land borders,' says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
The finance minister continues to be backed by the same policy team in charting out the broad strategy as in the few earlier Budgets.
While the US continues to shell out the largest defence budget in the world year after year, other nations are slowly but certainly catching up, says the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
'The government must provide more funds to enable the armed forces to fight and win tomorrow's wars,' states Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
The nation has the fifth largest defence budget in the world, at $52.5 billion in 2017 ($51.1 billion in 2016), overtaking the UK whose defence budget fell from $52.5 billion in 2016 to $50.7 billion in 2017.
Mrs Gandhi's power ebbed and peaked with the times. Mr Modi's has almost been constant, barring the few months of hard dip after the 240 seats of 2024, points out Shekhar Gupta.
India has decided to submit a dossier at the upcoming Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting, calling for Pakistan to be placed back on the grey list of the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.
'The government has to explain (to the army, air force and navy chiefs) whether they want a punitive strike, a deep punitive strike, or whether they want limited war or an all-out war, will it be a circumscribed war or will it be a shallow attack along the border.'
The central government has empowered the Army Chief to call out 'every officer and every enrolled person' of the Territorial Army (TA) to provide for essential guard or to be embodied to support or supplement the regular Army.
At the customary meeting ahead of the session beginning Monday, the opposition raised various issues, including voter roll revision in Bihar, the Pahalgam terror attack and Trump's 'ceasefire' claims.
The MiG-21 episode demonstrates that procurement is always strategic.
Choices about what aircraft to acquire, who builds them, who supplies the spares, who trains the pilots and technicians are decisions with political consequences lasting for decades.
'India is ahead only of Pakistan in the amount spent on each soldier a year.' 'The Indian military is a manpower-heavy throng that is poorly armed, equipped, and trained,' observes Ajai Shukla.
Few finance ministers announce any taxation measure that could upset the stock market. Ms Sitharaman decided to take that risk, observes A K Bhattacharya.
Defence exports grew 33 per cent in the calendar year 2023 (CY23) to around Rs 21,083 crore while domestic defence orders serviced by listed companies were Rs 48,000 crore. The sector is poised for steady growth. Budgeted domestic capex is likely to hit Rs 3 trillion per annum, and exports could reach $6 billion by FY29.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday said the Union Budget strikes a fine balance between growth, employment, and fiscal consolidation, and promotes cooperative federalism. Replying to the discussion on the Union Budget 2024-25 and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Budget in Rajya Sabha, the minister said the government is on track to achieve the pre-announced fiscal deficit target of 4.5 per cent by 2025-26. Sitharaman, also a former defence minister, said the Agniveer Scheme to recruit people in the age group of 17.5 to 21 years, is aimed at keeping the armed forces fit, young and battle-ready.
The US, China and the UK remain the top three defence spenders while India has the fourth largest military budget, followed by Saudi Arabia and Russia, according to the '2016 Jane's Defence Budgets Report', released by research firm IHS Markit.
Most think tax-saving deductions exist only in the old regime. But the New one quietly retains 40+ ways to ease your tax load
As many as 2.17 lakh pieces of fake notes of various denominations were detected during 2024-25 compared to 2.23 lakh such notes in the previous year, Parliament was informed on Monday. Of this, highest -- 117,722 pieces -- counterfeit notes of 500 [MG (New) Series] were detected in FY25, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
The report also revealed that the United States was still king with its expenditure representing about 40 per cent of the total Global Defence budget. India overtook Saudi Arabia and Russia to become one of the top five defence spenders globally.
The Indian Army's broader reorganisation is inevitable as India's military doctrine adapts to the demands of the modern battlefield.
She also holds the distinction of delivering the longest budget speech at two hours and forty minutes in 2020.
'The defence capability differential between China and India is rising at an alarming rate. This will continue to constrain India's rise as a major regional and global player of any significance.'
Confronting a slowdown in growth, China says it will only increase its defence budget by 7.6% this year, against the anticipated rise of between 20% and 30%. 'It is difficult to explain the reduction in the Chinese defence budget,' says Claude Arpi. 'Is there a hidden budget? Possibly!'
'From tariff tensions and border skirmishes to unrest in West Asia.' 'The worst may be behind us. But any further upmove will now have to come from earnings.'
Defence already accounts for one-third of the national capital spend, the government says.
